


dawn on the gates of eden

by darcylindbergh



Series: good morning [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley Thinks In Plant Metaphors Mostly, Eden As An Extended Metaphor, First Kiss, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Moment in time, Mood Without Plot, The First Morning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 20:56:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20234239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh
Summary: “Look at them,” Aziraphale says softly, but his gaze is unfixed and he’s not talking about anyone in particular. Just the city as a whole, just the unlikely rise of glass and steel, the improbable pinpoints of pale lamplight and neon flickering to life as London begins to wake: the implausible reality of the life humanity has built for itself here out of nothing but courage and tenacity and hope.  “Look at everything they’ve done. Everything they can do.”*It’s the first day, but it’s an old story.





	dawn on the gates of eden

The dawn after the end of the world is a hushed, slow thing, seeping in with a wash of grey and violets. It reminds Crowley of dust, of all things, as if Aziraphale has brought it with him, as if he’s leaving fingerprints of himself behind in all the poured-concrete spaces Crowley has never bothered to fill.

His flat is not that kind of place, really. It never has been.

There’s a misty drizzle hanging over the city, an unseasonable chill creeping into the spaces between the buildings. The headlights in the fog below look like ghosts, like lost souls wandering and wandering until they find their way home.

Crowley leans on the railing of his balcony and waits for the sun to rise.

When it does, it comes gently, wearing a soft knit jumper materialised out of the ether and carrying two mugs of cocoa. The jumper is a light, dusty blue; Aziraphale presses his arm against Crowley’s as he takes up his post on the railing next to him, standing sentinel together over the horizon, and Crowley can feel Aziraphale’s warmth through the knit.

“Look at them,” Aziraphale says softly, but his gaze is unfixed and he’s not talking about anyone in particular. Just the city as a whole, just the unlikely rise of glass and steel, the improbable pinpoints of pale lamplight and neon flickering to life as London begins to wake: the implausible reality of the life humanity has built for itself here out of nothing but courage and tenacity and hope. “Look at everything they’ve done. Everything they can do.”

It has been six thousand years since he and Aziraphale had stood on the walls of Eden and watched humanity take its first faltering steps toward forging a life on their own. Six thousand years since two humans reached for one another in the oncoming storm, finding that tender, unfurling will to survive.

Crowley and Aziraphale have watched it all: their fumbles and their victories, wild successes and devastating losses. They’ve watched humanity discover the earth, and beyond it; they’ve watched humanity discover themselves, and the depths within.

And somehow, for some six thousand years, they thought _they_ were the ones influencing humanity, instead of the other way round.

Bit foolish, that.

It’s a lesson that’s been six thousand years in the making, but Crowley and Aziraphale are here. Pressed arm to arm on the balcony of Crowley’s flat, looking out over humanity the way they have done since the beginning of time—only now, it’s their turn to take their first faltering steps forward, into a new life together.

They’re on their own side.

_Is this how they felt_, Crowley wonders, sipping at the cocoa Aziraphale had brought him, _stepping out of the garden and into the wild? All the new and unfamiliar land around them, all the wind and the sand and the righteous thunder? How did two humans, alone in the world, swallow down the terror and find the strength to survive?_

He doesn’t often try to remember the humans that have gone before them, but he thinks about them now: Adam and Eve, standing barefoot in the desert with the flaming sword in his hand and the child growing in her belly, taking death and life out into the world in equal measure. He remembers them standing hand-in-hand.

Slowly, Crowley sets his cocoa down, and then he reaches over and takes Aziraphale’s hand in his, tangling their fingers together.

“This could be the end,” Aziraphale says, as the dawn begins to lighten, as the rain begins to lift. His fingers are warm around Crowley’s; his hold is firm.

“Or it could be the beginning,” Crowley answers. “First day of the rest of our lives, angel.”

“They’ll come for us.”

Crowley looks over. Aziraphale’s hair is mussed from having slept in Crowley’s bed; there’s still the faint impression of the pillowcase lines pressed into his cheek. He’s never looked more human, wrapped in a light blue jumper, flushed a little against the chill. He’s never looked more beautiful.

“I’ll come back to you,” Crowley says. A promise: maybe even something more like a vow.

Aziraphale huffs into a surprised little smile. “You always have, haven’t you,” he says. “I suppose it would be terribly impolite if I didn’t return the favour this once.”

“It really would,” Crowley agrees. Aziraphale’s hand is still in his, and the dawn is starting to give way to light, shimmering through the last dregs of the rain, and Crowley has spent six thousand years next to him, watching him, watching humanity and wondering what it was they had that made them so resilient, what made them so sure of themselves, so determined to overcome sheer impossibility and build a life for themselves. What made them so capable of getting up again and again after every loss, of stepping forward with their grief and their pain so firm against their backs to find curiosity and creativity and strength in their own hearts beneath. What made them so unwavering in their wandering, in their reaching, their hope—their search for home.

He stands next to Aziraphale now, in the dawn after the end of the world, and Crowley thinks he knows. He knows, and he _understands_, and he can _feel it_, rising in his chest like the first young saplings to take root out near the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, spreading like the long grasses through the wetlands. Unfolding like the first fragile blossoms to grow wild in the world:

It feels like a garden growing without walls.

Crowley looks at Aziraphale and he says, “I love you.”

Aziraphale is silent for a long moment, looking out over the city, but his hand remains firmly in Crowley’s and Crowley can wait. There’s no rush. They’re here, and Aziraphale is with him, and for maybe the first time in his life, he is not afraid.

Finally, Aziraphale turns and looks at him with shining eyes. “I love you too,” he says, his voice cracked and quiet, as though he’s had to drag the words up through years and years of swallowing them back. Maybe he has. “I love you, and I’ll come back to you, Crowley. I’m always going to come back to you.”

The drizzle has softened the oncoming rush of morning, leaving the brilliance of the sunrise muted through fog and clouds, leaving everything quiet and subdued. Crowley thinks about morning glories, flowers that unravel only in the early morning hours; he thinks about the crystalline studs of dew forming in the veins of elliptic leaves, gathering lush in the trees. There and then gone, and already knowing that tomorrow it will all happen again.

Aziraphale’s hands are soft on Crowley’s face, and when Crowley kisses him, he tastes like rain, and a promise about mornings.

He curls his fingers into the knit of Aziraphale’s jumper and pulls him in, thinking about that first storm, his first tremulous steps on two feet under the protection of an unhesitating white wing; how it’s taken him six thousand years to take the the last step in. He’s been wandering and wandering, but he was always going to end up back here: side-by-side with Aziraphale.

He’s come home.

“It’s only the first day,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to Aziraphale’s, reveling in the _finally-finally _feeling of Aziraphale pressing back. “It’s only the first, and we have so much to do.”

Aziraphale presses another kiss to the corner of Crowley’s mouth, and holds him a little bit closer. “Better get started, then.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally.](https://forineffablereasons.tumblr.com/post/186888379953/if-you-write-a-fic-about-morning-fluff-with)  
Find me on tumblr [@forineffablereasons](https://forineffablereasons.tumblr.com%22) or on my main [@watsonshoneybee](https://watsonshoneybee.tumblr.com%22)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [dawn on the gates of eden [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21436051) by [ahundredindecisions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahundredindecisions/pseuds/ahundredindecisions)


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